This year the LDS community did the holidays in style. From celebrating Christmas with family and friends, throwing New Years Eve parties and getting out and about during the summer holidays right through to hosting BBQs on Australia Day. Our clients (and staff) had a wonderful time.
Click here to see our holiday snaps.
At LDS recently we were speaking about the parable of the Good Samaritan and what it means to love someone as yourself.
In our discussion we spoke about how our clients inspire us daily with their spirit of giving and looking after each other. From gathering together to celebrate a birthday, dancing at Club Cool
or going to the pageant, they look after each other, demonstrate true care and treat each other as they want to be treated.
This year as we celebrate the International Day of People with Disability on December 3, we can thank the people in our lives that live with disability for showing us the way to be Good Samaritans ourselves.
Building community is what we strive to do at LDS and our clients are leading the way by engaging, encouraging and welcoming new people into our community each and every day. Our challenge as individuals is are we doing the same for our community?
Dear clients, friends and families.
I continue to be encouraged by the work that the LDS team do in partnership with clients and families to create an environment where our clients feel they belong and have a meaningful and purposeful connection within their community.
It is so important to me that LDS lives out our faith values of sharing the love of God and serving each other. If we truly believe that all people are valued and have dignity and purpose then it is not hard to see our role is to empower each other to reach our full potential.
This year has been difficult due to COVID challenges, but our clients resilience and ‘can do’ attitude has been amazing.
There have been many examples where our clients have been achieving their goals. Seeing clients connect and contribute to in their local community programs is really encouraging for us all at LDS. Thanks to everyone who has helped to make this happen.
By the time you read this we will have held our end of year family gathering and nativity play on November 26th. I thank everyone who participated in sharing the successes of the year and joining into the Christmas spirit with the carol singing.
On December 3rd we will celebrate the International Day for People with Disability. We are looking forward to connect with local congregations to celebrate and acknowledge the unique gifts and talents we can each bring to making our communities a more inclusive and welcoming place.
I am so proud to lead this great organisation and I know that next year we will continue to evolve and improve in how we can work with our clients to help them achieve their life goals and create happy homes.
I want to especially thank everyone for looking out for each other during Covid. This is going to remain important for some time to come and I know we won’t get complacent but will continue to deliver excellent service in line with our values.
I trust you can take a bit on time off to rest and recharge over the holiday season. I wish you and your families a very merry and blessed Christmas and I look forward to all that 2023 can throw at us. Thank you to everyone who contributes to our mission and especially our wonderful clients. We are so blessed to be a part of your lives and thank you for being so awesome!
Blessings,
JvR
Hear our CEO, John van Ruth, on the radio with Jade Robran, FIVEaa
Dear clients, families and supporters, it is my great pleasure to invite you all to the LDS end of year family gathering complete with nativity play and lots of fun activities and great food. As per the invite later in this communique, it will be held on 26th November 2022 at the Fullarton Community Centre. It will be so good to return of a face-to face events where we can celebrate our client’s achievements, to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, and to share in fellowship and service with our wonderful community of clients, families, advocates and staff.
LDS Structure
Following some of the management changes over the past 12 months and following feedback from a number of families, we have recognised we need to continue to invest in the management layers of LDS to continue to provide the support and development of our wonderful teams of support workers who work with our clients. When we introduced the role of team leader, the intention was that they would spend a portion of their time on staff development, administration and be supported by our two Senior Client Service Managers Ben and Matt. This structure has been working well but we acknowledge the increasing workloads on team leaders and Senior Client Service Managers. In our recent client surveys you have told us that you want your team leader to be freed up so that they can be more available in the houses.
Based on the above and to ensure we continue to invest in our people, we are in the process of hiring four new Client Service Managers to focus on staff development, client service delivery quality and effectiveness while making sure the team leaders have enough time to focus on day to day supports for our clients. We will communicate who our new Client Service Managers are to all clients and families after as the recruitment is finalised. Your team leader will continue to be your main point of contact for any matters relating to clients. Please reach out to them at any time, they are there for you as are Ben and Matt our Senior Client Services Managers. My door is always open too, if you wish to raise any matters of concern or compliment.
Thank you once again for your continued partnership in supporting and empowering our clients to achieve their goals. One of LDS core values is “Excellence”. While we are not always “excellent” we will continue to strive to improve and develop our awesome team of support workers who go the extra mile and have a heart for our mission to help clients thrive and to connect in Christian community. We will keep investing in our teams and always welcome feedback on how we can improve our services.
I particularly want to shout out a huge thanks to St John’s congregation who feature in this edition. Practical examples of expressing God love through serving each other is a rich reminder of how much God loves each and every one of us created uniquely by Him and made perfect through our shared hope in the resurrection.
Blessings, JvR
At LDS we talk about community and how we can assist our clients to find connections in community and sometimes the community finds us.
Our first house – Shimron in Unley is closely connected to St John’s Lutheran in Unley. Many of our clients worship at this church and have become an essential part of the congregation and the community.
The Church has become a safe place for our clients to feel a part of the community, to worship and to express their faith.
We were delighted when the congregation approached LDS again this year to help clean up the garden after the successful working bee of 2021. Providing this outreach to our clients and making the house a home with a beautiful garden is a blessing and outpouring of love and faith from St. Johns.
Clients were encouraged to participate and engage with the volunteers and many had a great time working, chatting and socialising throughout the morning.
After a lot of work, the clients cooked a BBQ and shared a social (COVID-safe!) meal afterwards to continue the relationship building.
On behalf of everyone at LDS we thank we St. John’s congregation for supporting LDS and helping to make our clients a part of your community. God bless you all.
LDS is refreshing it’s media for the rest of 2022. For digital, social and print media the clients from St Marys will appear in the ads.
We also have a new radio ad that will appear on CruiseFM and FiveAA.
At LDS we are proud of our team of support workers. In this edition we introduce you to three of our awesome team: Julie Green, Mirza Asim Baig and Melissa Grant.
Hi, I’m Julie Green and I lead a happy, easy going life with my wonderful husband and live in a small country town north of Gawler. I have 7 grandchildren aged from 1yo to 17 years old. Love, love, LOVE my job and look forward to each and every day and intend to stay with LDS for the rest of my working life.
My Name is Mirza Asim Baig, I am 38 years old. I worked as a Courier Delivery Contractor for about 7 years before joining LDS. Working as a Disability Support Worker and joining LDS was one of the best decisions I’ve made in last decade. I love spending time with my family and travelling to new places with my wife. I also doing volunteer work within my free time.
I‘m Melissa Grant and I enjoy playing golf and am a member of the Grange Golf club. I also am a member of the Lockleys Lawn Bowls club where I play A grade pennant competition. I love watching football and my favourite team are the Adelaide crows. I have been a support worker for LDS for 5 years and enjoy helping my clients reach their maximum potential.
Sharon is a client that lives in one of our properties in Mansfield Park and recently her TV stopped working and she was worried that she would miss out on watching her favourite programs and the Crows game the next day.
Using the LDS Empowerment funds Sandy (Team Leader) and Bryan (Support Worker) sprung into action.
While Sharon could have waited to go through the process to apply for some money for a new TV, her support team knew that Sharon needed a TV immediately and couldn’t wait a week or so for the approval.
So, the team decided that the best approach was to buy a replacement TV for Sharon so that she wouldn’t miss out and would have company over the weekend.
By accessing the LDS ’empowerment’ funds – allocated budget to enable clients to replace items or to make their house a home or for any worthwhile purpose – through a quick call to the Senior Client Services Manager for approval and the new TV was picked up.
Sharon had a great weekend, with only a few hours without a TV and even though the Crows lost, she still enjoyed the new TV.
At LDS we empower our staff to make quick decisions on how to support their clients so that the clients can feel safe and secure. Over the past year we have purchased new curtains, basketball rings, sporting equipment and cooking equipment.
Through the empowerment fund we empower our staff to empower our clients! Just another example of the LDS difference in serving our community.
Over the past week LDS has undergone the NDIS Quality & Safeguarding Commission re-certification review.
The review was comprehensive and has allowed LDS to benchmark ourselves with the NDIS quality standards. There are opportunities for improvement identified in the review and LDS is committed to ensuring that we action these quickly.
The assessors also gave us feedback that LDS has a very mature system, comprehensive reporting and a strong governance approach. They also told us that our staff love working at LDS and are client focussed. Our clients told us through the assessors that they like being a part of LDS and love their homes.
We thank all of the participants in the review – clients, family and staff, all of whom gave their time to chat with the assessors.
We will inform everyone of the final sign-off of the re-certification once this becomes available from the NDIS Quality & Safeguarding Commission.
